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Contrary to what some may suggest — and frankly, how it feels on this end — it has been neither since Noah built the boat nor the river took Emmy Lou that a pen held by this right hand produced a truly respectable tournament bracket.

Been quite some time, however.

How long? Last time it happened, Final Four participants were coached by Dale Brown, Bob Knight, Dean Smith and Terry Holland. The building in which those semis and final unfolded ain't no more. The Spectrum went under handful of years back. Pearl Jam closed the joint on Halloween 2009 with a 43-song extravaganza that included, third-to-last, a cover of "Rockin' in the Free World."

Anyway …

It was 1981 when LSU, Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia assembled in Philadelphia, and a bracket bearing "KPS," the initials of a vertically challenged North High senior with range extending to the dotted portion of the circle — on a good night — pegged it dead-on.

Subsequent editions of the tournament haven't been pretty with regard to personal prognostication.

See the fella in the photo fixing to toss a coin? Might as well go that route— seriously. Or, say, one Ouija board per region. Maybe a séance, dial up the spirits of A. Rupp, H. Iba and F. Taylor for counsel. Or, perhaps tea leaves?

Couple years back was a classic example of how ugly it gets, why the original 8x11 sheet and all its copies are wadded and chucked angrily weeks before "One Shining Moment" is trotted out late Monday night.

Ol' Dare to be Different figured it made perfect sense a couple years back to send Steve Alford's third-seeded New Mexico squad straight to the Final Four in the Georgia Dome. Mountain West wasn't a bad league that winter, Lobos went 13-3. They could play!

Right. Then Harvard happened in the opening round at Salt Lake.

And so it has gone with regularity on this end, ineptitude collaborating with utter recklessness to produce something of an embarrassing finish in the office pool, i.e.: T31st, Stevens.

Oh, that's another thing.

Office pools.

How many among us who follow the game, believe we have some semblance of knowledge with regard to college basketball, are humbled by, say, the boating enthusiast three pods over who selects alphabetically according to coaches' surname? Or by the gal in marketing whose pen circles the school with the cooler mascot?

And how frustrating to administrate the damned thing and be responsible for updating and posting results — while buried three from dead last. Been there, done that far too many times.

And so this go-round?

It's about white bread. Bland, conventional, go with the flow.

Yep, swimming upstream has left the shoulders weary and the ego punctured.

And so …

It'll be all about Coach Cal's fellas from that citadel of academia in Lexington.

The Shootin' Scholars from Kentucky win it all.

Never mind that few people outside Louisville will be rooting harder for whomever the Wildcats oppose every time out.

Hope like crazy the world is wrong about Kentucky, and that instead it'll be representatives of a program that acknowledges and embraces the entirety of the "student-athlete" equation steadying the ladder under a goal come April 6 in Indy.